God's Welcoming Hand

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be now and always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

In this morning’s gospel reading there are two narratives, the one nestling within the other, rather like one Russian doll within another. In both the elements threaten. In both people are at the mercy of those elements. And in both Jesus lives up to his name, named Jesus according to the gospel birth narrative,

          for he will save his people, 

as he did when he rescued the disciples of this morning’s gospel reading.

It is to the second narrative, to the story within the story, to that of Jesus reaching out to help the storm-whipped Peter that I would draw your attention. 

When, Mathew related, [Peter] saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me. And Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him. 

But for Jesus’ unhesitatingly reaching out his hand and catching Peter, Peter would have been the second person in this short narrative to have lived up to his name, but in his case, through his sinking without trace, like the proverbial stone. 

I may be wrong, but I think that, in one of her novels, A S Byatt wrote of a family which ‘did God,’ but only as it ‘did lawyers,’ only when the issue was too challenging for the family to address on its own. Why trouble lawyers, let alone God, unnecessarily? And, if the family of Byatt’s novel ever had been in church when this morning’s reading happened to have been read, I hazard, that it might have argued,

but that’s exactly what Peter did. He only cried out to the Lord when he began to sink, not a minute beforehand. 

I wonder if sometimes we too ‘do God’ similarly.

Turn your mind back to the prayer with which this morning’s service opened. There we prayed that

we may perfectly love [God] and worthily magnify [the Almighty’s] holy name. 

Rather too often, when we pray these words, I assume, probably wrongly, that we assume, if we assume anything, that we, in our own strength, can so love God and can so magnify the divine name that we need not call upon God to ‘reach out his hand’ and help us to realise our prayer. We behave as though we are sufficient for what we have asked. But if these are our assumptions, they will be shown to be in error, and our behaviour will be found to be unequal to our perfectly loving and worthily magnifying God if and when we give proper weight to the two adverbs ‘perfectly’ and ‘worthily.’ Perfectly loving God and worthily magnifying the divine name may seem to be within our capacity until we remember the dominical injunction to be ‘perfect even as [our] Father in heaven is perfect,’  and then recall the paradigm of such perfect love – the one who emptied himself, and became a servant, who so loved his Father that he prayed, ‘not my will, but yours’ be done’,  and so loved his neighbour that he begged that even his crucifiers might be forgiven. 

The words of the opening prayer of our service are relatively easy to say. Putting them into practise is not that easy difficult. And the need for God’s helping hand always is necessary. No wonder that in that self-same prayer we also prayed that God would cleanse our hearts, that the Spirit would inspire our loving, and that through Christ we may magnifying the divine name.

In short, if we would perfectly love God, we need God’s extended, helping hand. 

But let me further suggest that if, at the end of this service, we would worthily magnifying God’s holy name, we again need to look for that self-same, unhesitatingly extended hand. Too often, ushered forward, as though the consecrated elements are our due, we line-up before our priest. And rather too frequently we fail to notice our hands, our outstretched hands, our empty, outstretched hands, hands which have nothing to offer and everything to receive. Their very emptiness silently echoes the cry of the out-of-his-depth Peter,

          Lord, save me. 

And save us the Lord unhesitatingly will do, again and again extending, offering his hand, which would catch us, and taking us by the hand, lead us to his feast, where he would have us 

          sit and eat. 

Again, in brief, if we would draw near to God’s altar, we truly do need God’s welcoming hand, inviting to 

          taste [his] meat.

For we never shall be worthy; but we always will be welcomed.

The brief narrative concerning Jesus reaching out and catching Peter would urge any who would ponder it to remember that the family in Byatt’s novel was wrong in thinking that people need God only when the elements are wildly raging. The truth is that we, like that family, and like Peter on that tempestuous night, ever need God. 

This, of course, is not to say that we can and should do nothing. It is rather to say that without God we cannot avail anything, but that, with God, with the one who unhesitatingly would take our hand in his, we may know ourselves confirmed

          in all goodness

and kept

          in life eternal, 

or, in the words of the opening prayer of this service, strengthened in perfectly loving and worthily magnifying God’s holy name. 

Moreover, with the one who unceasingly would take our hand in his, we find ourselves invited to be, to each other, and to all others, God’s welcoming hand, or, more accurately, to allow God’s welcoming hand to be extended through ours, extended to support especially those buffeted by the harsh winds of reality, who, but for being caught, would sink without trace.

Pray God then that we may ever be open to and rejoice in God’s helping hand. Further, pray that increasingly we may be to others those through whom God extends his helping hand, that, in concert with the other churches and chapels of this city, our city of Oxford may become not only a more equal community but also a more godly, a more gloriously compassionate place in which to live and work and welcome.

Amen.